This will resolve to YES if hand-held laser weapons are available commercially (including if they are restricted to the military) before the end of 2043. For this purpose, a weapon would need to be capable of causing second degree burns at a distance of at least 50 yards in order to count. A single person would need to be able to comfortably carry both the weapon and its power supply.
See https://manifold.markets/MarcMayerson/will-the-nra-advocate-the-second-am
The technology is clearly close:
@EvanDaniel Very Cool and Interesting. But I don't know that I would call this "close".
1: That laser is corded rather than battery powered, so it's not particularly portable. As @WesleyJB mentioned, the weight (and cost) of the batteries probably would be a limiting factor of an actual hand-held laser weapon.
2: It took him about a minute to cut the tree branch. You certainly COULD get second-degree burns from that, but only if the target declined to move for some reason. I'm guessing that a higher power version would be needed in order for it to be an effective weapon (barring a weapon which is primarily intended to blind, which is explicitly against current international law).
Note that the closest thing I can see to a practical hand-held laser weapon in the future would be something like this (if a hand-held version ever actually gets developed and produced): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser
@DanielParker I suppose I should have clarified better, I meant "close" in the context of "by 2043". That laser is only a couple kW; you could run it off a portable battery for several minutes without particular difficulty (beyond needing to rework the power supply, maybe).
We've also got truck-mounted anti-drone lasers. The tech is advancing fast, both on industrial and military fronts. I strongly suspect that by 2043, the question won't be about whether you could build one, but rather whether one is "commercially available".
@EvanDaniel I agree. This isn't intended to be a question which will obviously resolve to either YES or NO. On the balance, I lean towards NO, but who knows?
This is something that could already be made with current technology, namely Yb:Fiber laser and a LiPoly battery. The main reasons infantry laser weapons are not a thing are 1) geneva convention: you can't intentionally blind people which is a certain side-effect, 2) risk: you don't want to accidentally blind friendlies, 3) batteries: the joules-on-target to weight ratio heavily favors bullets.
Made a related question.
https://manifold.markets/WesleyJB/will-there-be-an-attack-on-civilian?r=V2VzbGV5SkI
